Hollow Man: Superbit Deluxe Collection

Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

The Charge

"It's amazing what you can do when you don't have to look at yourself in
the mirror."

Opening Statement

Paul Verhoeven directs exploitative trash. Sometimes it's good exploitative
trash: witness Robocop, Total Recall, and the film that made
Sharon Stone a star and revolutionized the undergarment industry, Basic Instinct. Sometimes it's bad
exploitative trash: witness Starship
Troopers. Sometimes, to borrow a line from Mel Brooks, it rises below
the label "exploitative trash": that would be Showgirls.

Given some spectacular visual wizardry, a pair of usually dependable leads
in Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue, and an intriguing if overdone premise, what
will Verhoeven come up with this time? One thing for certain: it'll be
exploitative trash.

Facts of the Case

Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon, channeling the egomaniacal character Keifer
Sutherland played opposite him in Flatliners) is an Einsteinian
wunderkind on the trail of the discovery of the century: a biochemical
method for making living things invisible by phase-shifting them out of
synchronization with the visible universe. Sebastian and his core team of
Pentagon-funded researchers, which includes his ex-lover Linda McKay (top-billed
Elisabeth Shue, more or less reprising her sweet, naïve scientific genius
from The Saint) and Linda's new
top-secret boytoy Matt Kensington (Josh Brolin, Mimic, doing the usual one-note Josh
Brolin thing), have actually had a fair bit of success in making an assortment
of critters disappear. It's getting the beasts back without dissolving them into
steaming heaps of protoplasm that's proving to be the real challenge, and that
generates friction between Sebastian and the animals's caretaker, veterinarian
Sarah Kennedy (Kim Dickens, Mercury
Rising, Zero Effect). This last
gruesome hurdle appears to have been jumped when a test subject, a gorilla named
Isabelle (Tom Woodruff Jr., the title monster in Pumpkinhead) returns from the
neighboring dimension of the space-time continuum alive and apparently
intact.

The suits at the Defense Department, however, are beginning to wonder
whether Sebastian and his crew mostly specialize in making millions of
government greenbacks disappear. With the golden spigot about to be cranked
shut, Sebastian decides it's time to make the bold leap into human testing, and
he's elected himself the testee: "You don't make history by following the
rules; you make it by seizing the moment," he tells a skeptical Linda and
Matt. Strapped to an operating table, Sebastian injects himself with
phosphorescent nuclear juice—"Any last words?" Matt asks;
"Yeah—if I die, pretend I said something deep and clever,"
cracks Sebastian, obviously having seen the remainder of the script. In an
impressively grisly visual effects sequence, Sebastian begins his agonizing
journey into the unseen, becoming at various stages in the process a dead ringer
for that clear plastic "Visible Man" model that was a toy store staple
in the '60s and '70s, and a living ad for those cheesy "X-Ray Specs"
once sold in the back pages of comic magazines everywhere.

Once phase-shifted out of view, Sebastian explores the myriad joys of
invisibility. These include, among others, murder, sexual assault, animal
cruelty, and frightening small children at traffic signals. It takes the other
members of his team a while to figure this out—an astoundingly long while
given the supposed average I.Q. in this group of biotech wizards—but
eventually they reach the conclusion that Sebastian has let his god-complex run
rampant with his newfound talents. (Apparently, he never had an Uncle Ben to
teach him that with great power comes great responsibility.) His deletion of the
security access codes that would enable them to escape from their underground
lab/prison is the final clue that Sebastian's sanity has left the building, even
if they can't.

What remains for the rest of the film is the age-old puzzle that has plagued
military commanders for generations: how do you fight an enemy you can't see?
(Did I mention that they can't figure a way to change him back to visibility
again? Uh-oh.)

The Evidence

There's plenty of reason to suppose Hollow Man could have been a
decent movie: mindblowing visual effects; a pair of talented and attractive
leads in Kevin Bacon and Elisabeth Shue (despite the fact that Shue's having a
bad hair movie here); a director with a track record for mining, if not gold, at
least brass, out of lesser genre material. But it seems as though at some point
in the production cycle, Paul Verhoeven decided he really didn't have to make a
decent movie. He therefore allows what was reasonably entertaining and
suspenseful scare-fare during the first hour to ooze inexorably down into the
bottomless pit of hackneyed tripe in the second hour.

Screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe (Air Force
One) takes the viewer on an exhaustive tour of the Cinema Cliché
Handbook. We get the Power-Mad Scientist; the Closet Relationship Hidden from
the Jealous Ex-Boyfriend; Reckless Self-Experimentation Spurred by Imminent Loss
of Funding; the Serial Killer Loose in an Inescapable Location (also known as
Shooting Fish in a Barrel); the Hero(ine) Trapped in the Walk-In Freezer; the
Let's-Split-Up-So-We-Can-Be-Picked-Off-Individually Line of Defense; the
Jack-in-the-Box Killer; the Monster That Won't Die; the Climbing
Escape…did I miss any? Oh yes: the Black Cast Member Dies First. It's
almost as though Marlowe decided to check what seemed to be de rigeur in
every other sci-fi/horror film made since the original Alien and follow the pattern
unswervingly. (I guess he didn't understand that Scream was supposed to be a parody.)

The cast does what they can with a script that abandons them at sea. Kevin
Bacon does a credible job with yet another of the oily, smug, arrogant
characters he's been churning out since National Lampoon's Animal House.
Elisabeth Shue makes a plucky attempt to appear heroic, but she's miscast here;
when she has to do a few rather nasty things late in the film, we don't quite
buy it coming from the babyfaced innocent from Cocktail and Adventures in Babysitting.
(Before you fire off that email, I'm not saying a beautiful woman can't play
tough. I'm only pointing out that Elisabeth Shue, a quality actress in other
roles, has an underlying sweetness and gentility to her onscreen presence that
makes her very wrong for this particular part.) Verhoeven would have been better
served reversing his female stars, putting Kim Dickens, who has some grit to
her, in the Linda Hamiltonesque lead role, and casting Shue as the empathetic
veterinarian. But then, you don't get $95 million greenlighted if your lead
actress is Kim Dickens. Josh Brolin is, well, Josh Brolin—I get parts
because my dad's married to Streisand—but the other supporting players
are all fine as they each await his or her moment of gory demise. William
Devane, a solid character actor, phones in a thankless walk-on as Sebastian's
one-time mentor. (Devane gets two scenes: in one, he snarls; in the other, he
splashes.)

The effects crew, unlike the story department, earned every dollar of their
paychecks here, creating some graphic transformation scenes as the bodies of
first Isabelle the gorilla and then Sebastian Caine appear and disappear layer
by layer: skin, then muscle, then circulatory system and internal organs, and
finally skeleton. It's the kind of gut-clenching, over-the-top grotesquerie
Verhoeven—and your average teenaged Fangoria fanboy—loves. [I
sometimes wonder whether Verhoeven is really David Cronenberg on the odd days
when Cronenberg (a) takes his medication and (b) decides he actually wants his
films to make money.] The trifecta of the flesh-and-blood Kevin Bacon, computer
animation melded over the greenscreened Bacon, and fullblown CGI aping Bacon's
movements has to be seen more than once to be fully appreciated. There are
moments in Sebastian's phase-shift, mostly the further away from live Kevin the
transformation gets, when the animation isn't quite convincing—for the
same reasons the photorealistic simulated humans in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
aren't 100% convincing—but it's pretty fantastic nonetheless. (Plus, it
puts a whole other spin on the phrase "Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon.")

The anamorphic transfer on this Superbit Deluxe Edition could hardly be
better. The image is razor-sharp and clean as the proverbial whistle throughout,
free of print defects and conversion artifacts of any kind. Every muscle
striation and capillary in the transformation sequences is perfectly delineated,
and detail is noticeably crisp in every frame of the film. Ironically, the
clarity of the Superbit format almost works against itself, as it reveals
infrequent graininess in the source film that would probably be undetectable in
a standard DVD. Color balance is vividly realistic without being overamped;
shadows are suitably inky and deep. This is the first opportunity I've had to
see one of Columbia's much-hyped Superbit releases up close and personal, and
frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised.

As remarkable as the picture is, the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is equally
outstanding. Hollow Man's Superbit Edition is a worthy disc for
showcasing your surround system, guaranteeing effective and active deployment of
every speaker in your arsenal. The theme of the film relies on drawing the
viewer into the illusion of an invisible presence at key moments, and this
soundtrack excels in that regard; you'll feel total immersion in the
environment. And when things blow up, they blow up with plenty of satisfying
bottom end—turn the gain up high enough and you might peel a layer or two
off your own face. The dialogue track, on the other hand, is nicely focused and
isn't overwhelmed by the action. Jerry Goldsmith's creepy score shines as well
(the isolated score on the first Hollow Man DVD release is, sadly, MIA
this time). For the truly technocapable home theater buff, a DTS audio option is
also available, though it's hard to imagine it being much better than the
standard mix.

With all of the extra digital information crammed onto the film disc for the
Superbit presentation, this Deluxe Edition collects all of the supplemental
material on Disc Two. (Again unfortunately, an audio commentary featuring
director Verhoeven, writer Marlowe, and star Bacon found on the original release
is absent on this edition. As a commentary hound, I'm hoping Columbia TriStar
figures out a way to resolve this dilemma for future Superbit titles.)

First up, we get HBO's "Making Of" featurette, "Anatomy of a
Thriller." If you've seen any HBO "Making Of" short, you know
what this is: fifteen minutes of promotion department puffery wrapped around a
cornucopia of interview clips featuring the cast, director, producer and key
production crew members. You won't learn a lot, and no one will say anything
remotely critical of the film or anybody associated with it. But if you dig
Entertainment Tonight, this will be right up your alley.

A trio of "VFX Picture-in-Picture Comparisons" offer more
constructive use of your time. Three sequences from the film are presented in
the original soundstage footage before post-production effects were
incorporated—you'll see Kevin Bacon in his greenscreen masking bodysuit
and makeup—with the finished scene shown in a separate window. Nifty.

Since good things come in threes, we're also treated to a triple dip of
deleted scenes. "Was It a Dream?" is an alternate, somewhat restaged
version of a sequence that appears in the final film. "Sebastian
Attack" provides snippets of the full-length version of a rape scene that
is (thankfully, in my opinion) foreshortened in the final cut—"It was
too much too soon," says Verhoeven, ever the advocate of propriety and
restraint, in an inserted interview clip. A third sequence, entitled
"Sebastian on the Prowl," features some outside-the-laboratory hijinks
by the invisible man that were excised due to pacing concerns; Verhoeven's
commentary is interspersed here also.

The meat-and-potatoes content is a series of fifteen featurettes, globally
titled "Fleshing Out the Hollow Man," totaling approximately 45
minutes. (For some reason, the fine folks at Columbia TriStar elected not to
make it possible to view these continuously; you have to remote-click your way
into each featurette.)

The first clip, "Paul Verhoeven: Hollywood's Mad Scientist" (6:45)
features the stars and production staff of the film in interview nuggets talking
about what it's like to work with Verhoeven. We see several bits of
behind-the-scenes footage with Verhoeven interacting with his cast and crew;
he's obviously an energetic, hands-on director, who's not afraid to get
down-and-dirty on the set with his actors and demonstrate for them exactly what
he wants them to do. An interesting glimpse into the working style of the
auteur.

Here's an overview of the remaining short subjects (with approximate run
times):

"The Invisibility Formula" (5:00): How do you shoot a movie in
which your title character can't be seen for significant portions for the film?
You'll find out here.

"The Muscle Man" (5:30): Visualizing the internal anatomy for the
transformation sequences; figuring out the methodology for designing and showing
what can't be seen under normal circumstances. The computer animators were
challenged to make their virtual man look and move like the real Kevin Bacon.
This is probably the most intriguing supplement in the section and if the
graphic fadeout sequences are what drove you to pick up this disc, this is the
featurette that contains what you most wanted to see.

"The Human Bubble" (3:00): The swimming pool
sequence—showing the invisible man underwater. The effects shots here may
remind you of the transparent pseudopod creatures in The Abyss. Frankly, I didn't think this sequence
in the film was all that impressive or innovative, but it's interesting to see
how they did it. (Watch for the big glass globe the effects guys toss in the
water to simulate "Sebastian" diving in.)

"Thermal Imaging" (1:20): Seeing the world through infrared
glasses. You've seen this sort of effect before, going all the way back to Predator.

"The Smoke Guy" (1:30): In several scenes in the film, the
phase-shifted Sebastian is rendered partially visible using smoke. You'll learn
in this clip how the visual effects people made that happen. (As with the
underwater scene, I didn't think this effect worked terribly well, but your
mileage may vary.)

"The Gorilla Suit" (1:30): Just what you wanted: an interview with
the actor who played the test subject gorillas, Tom Woodruff Jr. Shirttail
Woodruff relatives will no doubt love it.

"The Mask" (2:00): Molding and using the latex appliance Kevin
Bacon wears in several scenes. Mildly interesting; again, you've seen this
before.

"Flaming Sebastian" (5:20): The special effects team sets up and
stages a sequence in which a character is set ablaze with a flamethrower. You'll
have to hose down the pyromaniac in your household after this one.

"Elevator Finale" (3:00): Bringing together the combination of
pyrotechnics and computer-generated effects that resulted in the spectacular
climax. Pretty entertaining in and of itself; it's fun to watch Elisabeth Shue
not wanting to kiss a guy with fluorescent lime-green pancake all over his face,
even if that guy is the dreamy Mr. Bacon.

"Ape Reversion Storyboards" (2:00): A series of storyboards
visualizing the gorilla's return from invisibility. Verhoeven supplies audio
commentary, and the finished sequence appears for comparison in a separate
window.

"The Underground Lab" (1:40): A discussion of set design. Unless
you're a budding interior decorator, a prime moment to go refill that cream
soda.

"Invisibility Progressions" (2:30): Similar to the previous
featurette, only this time using Sebastian's first transformation sequence as
the source material, and with comments by Scott E. Anderson, Senior Visual
Effects Supervisor.

Both the teaser and full theatrical trailer are also presented, along with
static text filmographies for director Verhoeven and stars Bacon, Shue, and
Brolin. (If you really want to dash out and rent more Josh Brolin films after
seeing his mannequin-like performance in Hollow Man, you just weren't
paying attention.)

I have one key gripe that applies to every item of added content on this
second disc: Columbia TriStar felt compelled to add a copyright screen at the
conclusion of each and every individual feature. By the time you've watched all
the supplements, you've been assaulted with this legalese somewhere in the
neighborhood of two dozen times. I can appreciate the studio's interest in
protecting its copyrighted material, but hokey smoke, Bullwinkle—one
notice per disc would be plenty adequate, I would think. But then, I'm not a
copyright lawyer, and I'm not banking a fee every time my words show up
onscreen.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

One certain sign that a movie has derailed is the constant flashing into my
brain of these odd little questions. For example: when Sebastian first becomes
invisible, he complains loudly and repeatedly about the brightness of the lights
in the lab. "His eyelids are transparent," posits Linda, meaning he
can't shut out the light by closing his eyes. Okay, but riddle me this,
Hollow Man: if his eyelids are transparent, it stands to reason that his
retinas are also. So how is it that he can see at all?

Here's another noggin-scratcher. If you knew an invisible man was lurking
about, and you owned thermal goggles that enabled you to see him, wouldn't you
keep them on? Like, all the time? Beginning the second you suspected that he
might be capable of antisocial behavior? I would. You would too. Nobody in this
movie does. The answer to this one, of course, is: "If they wore the
goggles all the time, Sebastian couldn't sneak up on them." (Same reason
Gene Roddenberry didn't put seatbelts on the original Enterprise; if they
had them, the actors couldn't be flung out of their chairs.) Sorry, Mr.
Verhoeven, but that's just plain lazy filmmaking.

Last question: in the pool scene, isn't that Captain Picard's wife from
Star Trek: The Next Generation in the upstairs window? You know, the one
who was Denise Crosby's roommate in 48 HRS.? She's just singlehandedly
lowered a whole bunch of people's "Bacon numbers" by at least a couple
with only a two-second cameo.

Closing Statement

I like my Bacon chewier than this. Hollow Man is a stunning visual
extravaganza that ends up feeling (dare I say it?) hollow due to the weak and
cliché-infested screenplay. It's worth seeing once, but not repeatedly, and
by the time you've combed through the worthwhile extras, you'll have already
seen more of Kevin's Bacon than you ever thought you wanted to see. If you
really like this film, save a couple of bucks and pick up the non-Superbit DVD
that includes the commentary and isolated score tracks.

The Verdict

Paul Verhoeven's latest film is guilty of being still more exploitative
trash, closer to the equally hollow gorefest Starship Troopers than his better
early work. Columbia TriStar is sentenced to five years in an underground lab
with an invisible gorilla for continuing to perpetuate the hollow travesty that
is Superbit. As Mr. Bacon once said, "These are the facts of the
case…and they are undisputed." Court is in recess.